The Government of Jersey, through its delivery partner Digital Jersey, is today launching Impact Jersey – a new scheme to support the island’s future economy, environmental ambitions and community goals by accelerating and strengthening Jersey’s technology ecosystem.
Through a coordinated series of grant programmes, Impact Jersey will award up to £20 million to address the island’s biggest challenges, through the use and adoption of technology.
Impact Jersey will fund the brightest tech ideas and solutions that will drive real impact and deliver positive change in future years to improve Islanders’ lives. It will support experimentation and trialling new, creative approaches to develop solutions that work for Jersey.
This open approach to funding the research and development of new technologies for Jersey will harness the energy, ingenuity and resources of the private sector, public sector and our island community to create and implement solutions to longstanding and complex issues that affect us all.
Impact Jersey will deliver funding through two routes:
- Open grant programmes that will offer multiple grants to people and businesses seeking to implement or grow technological solutions to various island challenges.
- Challenge programmes that identify a specific major issue that affects Jersey and offer larger grants to innovative companies able to provide a solution.
Alex Curtis, Assistant Minister for Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture said: “We’re excited to announce the launch of Impact Jersey, a scheme that aims to enable islanders and experts to help find answers and solutions to some of Jersey’s biggest challenges. Impact Jersey aims to focus on Government’s strategic priorities, such as helping to improve the health and wellbeing of Jersey’s population, improve sustainable transport options for islanders, and improving the productivity, resiliency, and vibrancy of our economy to name a few.
“I have set a high expectation that Impact Jersey will deliver on value for Islander’s money, transparency, and fairness. Beyond the specific deliverables from each programme, I hope that Impact Jersey can help develop the culture of digital enablement and delivery within businesses and enhance entrepreneurial and community spirit.”
Tony Moretta (pictured), CEO, Digital Jersey said: “We want to support and reward big thinkers and problem solvers to drive positive change for the island and its people. We are seeking solutions from as broad a base as possible. This could include (but is not limited to) entrepreneurs, researchers and inventors, students, corporate innovators and social entrepreneurs.
“The first Open Programme, launching in the summer, is seeking innovative proposals to introduce technology or services that address one or more of Jersey’s strategic priorities. We are specifically calling on Jersey’s local problem solvers, innovators and entrepreneurs who understand the island’s unique challenges and are best placed to generate solutions.”
Jersey-based companies and individuals can be awarded up to £75,000 to contribute towards their work over a period of up to a year. Just like the UK and other schemes around the world, we encourage courageous thinking provided they demonstrate substantial benefits for the people of Jersey.
Register interest for the first Open Grant Programme
The first Open Grant Programme will open for entries this Summer. It will seek solutions from Jersey-based companies and individuals that address one (or more) of eight strategic priorities: skills, climate change, housing, transport, health, productivity, supply chain resilience and new economic opportunities.
Each ‘open programme’ will be broad and inclusive to enable many different types of solutions to Jersey’s challenges to be supported. They will operate in a similar way to Innovate UK Smart Grants, with smaller allocations of funding released to help stimulate and support the implementation of technologies that meet the island’s strategic priorities.
Impact Jersey will work closely with entrants to assess and evaluate ideas to mitigate risks and regularly review its own processes to continue to improve the programme. Impact Jersey’s intention is to make applying to a programme as frictionless and easy as possible. It will use a test and learn approach to refine and improve this with each new programme. To find out more about Impact Jersey and register your interest for the first Open Grant Programme, visit here.
